


The Circle

by Myka



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Drama, Dystopia, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Novella, Original Fiction, Romance, young adult
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-07-26 14:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7577995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myka/pseuds/Myka





	1. Chapter 01

Today, I decided to do something very stupid.

And when I decided to do this, it was for two reasons.

First, I wanted something to change. I wasn’t really looking for anything, except maybe to fill my monotonous life with something other than what I was raised for - to feel the desperate compulsion of rebellion when you are old enough to feel the need, but too young to have control of your life. It was a game. A challenge. One that I wanted to win, but didn’t really expect to.

The second was because of him. Because he made me smile without trying to. Because for months he has invaded my dreams, and because he made me believe life could be different.

If you saw my life through a looking glass, you would say I was lucky. I was born in a harsh world after all. Harsh for most except the lucky few, and I was in that very small pot of lucky. It’s been almost 700 years since the war of division. Not much information is left of what happened back then. We do not really learn about it in class except that there was a war, that millions died, and that our nation, Gorus, was once part of a bigger nation with our neighbor, Nusa, until something happened to break them apart. Now there is a giant wall dividing the two countries. A wall I’ve only seen pictures of, reaching high into the sky so nothing could be seen from either side.

I do not know what Nusa looks like, all I know is that it is a rundown country and The Wall exists to protect us. Every time we hear about it in history, I wonder, how bad could it really be? And how much worse was it from Gorus?

People die in this country. Hundreds every day. From crime, from disaster, from disease. But there is nothing unusual about that; that happens everywhere else around the world too. The world by nature is a harsh place, and you get no say in which corner of it you will come to life.

I ran my fingers through my dark hair, making sure it didn’t need a quick cut. Satisfied, I put on my light gray jacket with blue ringlets around the wrists, the one I bought with my own money and not with my father’s allowance. I could hear as the lines of cloth snug to my form and felt it cooling me down.

The last thing I put on was my glasses. I could have had an operation to repair my eyesight years ago, but there was something always holding me back. Perhaps a little fear, perhaps hesitation, or maybe because in all the pictures I have of my mother, she was wearing a pair. Wearing them simply made me feel more like a part of her was still here.

I did a last check around the house to make sure my father was still out. His office was empty. I made my way to the foyer of the house. It was a very big three floor house. I pressed the code on the security pad by the front door and saw my image reflected on the device.

“Father. I am going to the campus to work on my project. I will be back after dark.”

Short. Simple. To the point. And half the truth.


	2. The world of Gorus

I didn’t own a car. I had a motorbike. It sounds more dangerous than it actually is. After the Secure Bike Law that was passed thirty years ago, bike companies had to construct bikes that did not lose balance regardless of speed or driver error. So even if I tried, I wasn’t going to crash.

The sun was still high outside, so I wasn’t running late. The neighborhood I lived in was small, private, and extremely exclusive. Only four families resided here, all political families. The world called it The Circle, and it was just my draw in the accidental lottery of birth.

My bike did not roar or flare as I turned it on; it just hummed and aligned itself automatically to the ground. “School,” I said out loud, and instantly got the screen updated with road conditions, weather and travel time. The campus was not far from The Circle so I didn’t bother to look at any of it.

I sped through my exclusive neighborhood. The houses rested on a large cul-de-sac at the end of a long, curved road surrounded by a forest. My home was the first on the right as you entered.

The bike swerved perfectly on the sharp turns of the road dividing the houses from the access gate. I could ride it with my eyes closed. The first bump to my day was when I stopped at the gate and pressed my palm against the ID pad. It logged my time of exit and recorded my image.

There was barely any traffic, but then again it was Saturday, and it wasn’t like anyone could afford a vehicle. It made for a quick commute. I passed one of the large public buses down the road, full of weary passengers with eyes that couldn’t help staring my way as I drove past. It used to bother me, but not anymore.

The campus of Aurora High was a beautiful structure by architectural standards. Four rectangular buildings connected together by a circular library. Each of the rectangular buildings was considered a minicampus, the North, South, East, and West Halls. This version of Aurora High was just nine years old, and its upgrade had to do with me, my family, and the three other families that lived on The Circle.

The government of Gorus consisted of four political parties — each headed by a single family — battling it out every two years to see who would make the rules. When a party won an election, the head of that family would be the president. This duty, this distinction, was passed down from the parents to their children. A mockery of monarchy. It had been like this ever since the war.

I am the only child of one of those families. One day I will get the chance to run this country.

My bike parked itself on the first empty spot in North Hall after two more checks of my ID. One at the campus main gate, another at the North Hall gate.

Nine years ago, they decided to move all the families together in the same neighborhood so we could pretend we got along with one another. The school was also updated around the same time so that the children from each family got their own hall. Mine was North. I never shared classes with the children of my father’s political rivals, never saw them as long as I stayed in North Hall. There was only one place I could possibly see my neighbors on campus — the central library, better known as the CL.

I made sure my bike was logged off before pulling my backpack from the seat compartment and making my way to the CL. A machine scanned my hand for the fourth time, and I made my way to the second floor of the library. History and Politics. I thought it would look less suspicious than fourth floor fiction.

The beating of my heart was not its usual calm self as I slowly made my way up the stairs, and I scanned my hand a fifth time to get access to the floor. I walked to one of the many rows of ancient books, pretending to look for a specific title. I usually enjoyed going to the library, any library. It made me forget that everywhere I went there was a digital stamp with my name and picture on it saying where I was, when, and for how long.

I enjoyed the simple pleasure of running my fingers across the edges of the books, feeling the different materials they were made from. Books made from paper were not made anymore. They could only be found in a library like this, and only a few of them had relevant collections.

I waited five minutes, and then grabbed whatever book my fingers were touching and pulled it out, barely glancing at the title or cover because it didn’t matter. I wasn’t there for a book or to study. I sat in the east section of the library and opened my borrowed book. I read a few lines, but none of it stuck to my memory. It was a boring political opinion piece and I had zero interest of one man’s assumptions about me.

I heard someone sitting a few tables across from me and looked up.

It was a boy my age, with messy brown bangs and eyes darker than his hair. His name was Maxwell Torres; he studied in West Hall and was looking at a book that appeared to be three times bigger than mine and definitely more relevant.

I remembered the first time I saw Maxwell. Nine years ago. I was six and struggling in elementary because my father was too busy to help me with homework. Back then we lived in a nice large neighborhood with plenty of homes and plenty of kids my age. Our neighbor, Ms. Tolken, took me in whenever my father had to work late and I would get to play with her son, Danny, until my father came home to pick me up. I was happy with the routine, but it ended the night my father dressed me up in my very first formal suit. I remember his serious face as he fixed my tie. I had gone to his parties before, but never dressed like him. It was very exciting until he told me that we were moving. To this day, I’m not entirely sure why my father told me about the move before the party and nothing else but that. Maybe he thought I was too young to understand. But I understood enough. I understood that I wasn’t going to live next to Danny anymore, and that I would have no one to play with while my father worked.

The party was a sea of frown-faced adults. I remember looking up and seeing so many serious people. No one smiled, no one laughed.

“Did someone die, Father?” I remember pulling my father’s hand when I asked, but he just pried my fingers away and dropped my hand.

“No,” he said. “Now stay here and behave, do not talk to anybody. I need to converse with some of these people.”

I pressed my back against one of the walls of the room and obeyed, picking the loose strings from the rugged wall. I stood there for a long time waiting for my father to come get me or call to me. This had to be another Meeting People Party, as I called them. I usually just waited in a corner or next to him until he thought it was appropriate to introduce me. I never had a problem waiting, no matter how boring it was. I was used to it.

And then I had to pee.

I had not gone to the bathroom before leaving the house, even after my father reminded me, because I wasn’t sure if I could put my fancy shirt back inside my pants. I wasn’t exactly coordinated at six; a suit was just such a grown-up thing. I didn’t want my father to be mad. So I pretended to go, flushed the toilet and everything, but now I had to go for real.

At six, I thought I was a pretty smart kid. Even back then I was planning ways to avoid my father’s judgment. My mission was to go the bathroom without my father noticing, and return with a well-tucked-in shirt.

The exit was easy to find. The bathroom, too. The shirt was the problem. It did not look the same as when my father had tucked it in no matter how I tried.

“Don’t make it too tight.” I still remember those words. The first time I met Maxwell we were the same height, and he looked as out of place as me in a child-sized suit.

“Like this!” Maxwell said, and stepped next to me as he pulled out his perfectly tucked in shirt. He took the hem of his shirt and started tucking it all the way around, reaching with difficulty to his back. “The back is hard, but it doesn’t matter because your jacket will hide it.” I imitated what he did and slowly tucked in my shirt, pulling on the hem as much as I could. “When you finish, just pull a little on the shirt so it doesn’t look too tight, that way no one will see that the shirt’s a little ruffled.”

“Thank you.” My shirt wasn’t as perfect as before, but it wasn’t noticeably different either. I was happy.

 Maxwell was all smiles. He looked like he had been as bored as I had been at the party. “What’s your name?” he asked.

I hesitated. I wasn’t allowed to tell people who I was; my father always introduced me. “Andy.”

“I’m Maxwell!” We shook hands just like the grown-ups and I thought maybe I wouldn’t miss my friend Danny so much.

I don’t remember what we talked about after that. Kid stuff. I do remember that we left the bathroom, walked around the hallway next to the room where the party was being held, and that’s when a man with light hair approached us. The man was a photographer for the event. He took a picture of Maxwell and I without asking. I was instantly terrified. Pictures were not a good thing. My father had warned me against picture taking. Fear is never a good feeling, much less when you are a child. So I reacted like any small child would — I burst into tears and caused a commotion. People came. A woman with dark hair and a frightened look on her face shoved her way through the crowd, and when she spotted us that frightened look morphed into something grittier. She grabbed Maxwell’s hand and took off with him right before my father made his way through the crowd and took me away. As I held tight to my father’s hand, I saw men talking with the photographer. He didn’t look happy. I was lucky that my father’s anger concentrated on the photographer instead of me. He didn’t even care when I told him I had gone to the bathroom. 

This blurry memory was the first interaction. When I was still in the dark. 

The truth of what happened that night became clear to me just a week later, when my father had men put all my things in boxes and we left the house I had lived in since the day I was born.


End file.
